Japan unveils first images of stricken Moon bot – there's still hope for a mission

THE FIRST images of Japan's troubled lunar lander have been sent back to Earth, showing it has landed on its nose.

Despite the shaky positioning and critically low battery, Japan has praised its 'precise' touchdown.

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The Japanese space agency landed SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) within 100 meters of the Shioli crater, on the near side of the moon, exactly as planned, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced.

The country's goal with the moon landing was to demonstrate that it has the technology needed to conduct accurate touchdowns.

The nose down position explains the difficulties SLIM has had in generating power.

Although it also appears that one of the SLIM's two main engines failed during the descent.

“An abnormality in the main engine affected the landing attitude of the spacecraft,” JAXA said in a statement.

SLIM – once called 'Moon Sniper' – is now in sleep mode because the lander's solar panels are not pointing towards the sun.

Now scientists behind the mission hope that SLIM will wake up when the light angles at the landing site change.

A moment in history

The Japanese space agency considers the landing a success.

And despite its mistakes, the country is the fifth country to land on the moon, after the Soviet Union, the US, China and India last summer.

This was not Japan's first attempt.

In November, the country attempted a moon landing with its OMOTENASHI lander as part of NASA's unmanned Artemis one mission.

However, the mini-probe did not reach its destination.

In April last year, Japan's ambitions to become the first country to commercially land on the moon were dashed after contact with the spacecraft was lost.

The founder of the company behind the lander, ispace, admitted that the spacecraft most likely crashed on the moon.

Before SLIM went to sleep, controllers had to send down images taken of the moon's surface from the built-in infrared camera.

The images were sent to Earth using SLIM's smart sidekicks: the Sora-Q and Lev-1.

First, Sora-Q had to transmit the images to the Lunar Excursion Vehicle 1, or Lev-1 – a second, smaller robot ejected from SLIM.

Lev-1 can then contact mission control using its onboard radio equipment to send images down.

SLIM was launched on September 6 last year and has been orbiting the moon since Christmas Day.

The spacecraft cost £95 million to make and weighs just 200 kilograms.

JAXA took a slow and steady approach to SLIM's journey to the lunar surface, choosing the more energy efficient path.

This choice likely comes as a relief to JAXA after seeing the fate of the US Peregrine lunar lander earlier this month.

The US lunar lander suffered a critical fuel leak just hours into its six-week journey.

Peregrine Falcon, and all contents on board, eventually disintegrated when the spacecraft re-entered Earth's atmosphere.

Russia and India also took a faster approach with their respective lunar landers, and although the Russian spacecraft ultimately crashed, India's touchdown was a resounding success.

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